So, it’s with great pleasure that I can now reveal the overall category winners of this year’s Hysteria Writing Competition. All three winning entries are featured alongside the other nine finalists in their category in Hysteria 6, the anthology of 30 short-listed entries.
I’m really pleased to announce the shortlisted winners of the Hysteria Writing Competition, flash fiction, short story and poetry categories 2017. Each of these fantastic entries will be published in Hysteria 6, the anthology of this year’s competition due out at the end of November.
Janet Lees is one our fantastic team of judges for the Hysteria 2017 poetry category. She has numerous awards to her name including: One of 10 poets shortlisted for the National Memory Day competition 2017, an open international call on the theme of ‘Memory’. A poem selected in Guernsey International Poetry Prize 2017 for the Poems on the Move exhibition on the buses and various venues in Guernsey this year. She was the 2nd prize-winner in the Poetry School and Soda Pictures Instagram poetry competition . And finally a poem selected for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual 2017.
Ann Abineri is one of our amazing team of flash fiction category judges. She lives in the Cambridge area. She has had short stories, flash fiction and poetry published in Mslexia, Writer’s Forum, Writing Times, Pennine Ink and Words and Women Three. In 2016 Ann had a poem and a short story commended in the Mother’s Milk Writing Prize and a short story achieve third place in the Carer’s UK writing competition.
Becky Danks is one of our amazing team of flash fiction judges. She recently won the City Writes competition with her short story The Anniversary and she was able to read it at their event just last night, 12th July.
The third category for the Sixth International Hysteria Writing Competition is poetry. That means a poem with the very loose theme “things of interest to women.” Oh, and a maximum of twenty lines, not including spaces. Our writer in residence Alex Reece Abbott has asked some award-winning poets and judges from around the world to share their best pointers for writing poetry for her post this month – big thanks go to the fabulous Frankie McMillan; Camille Ralphs; Jane Clarke and Aki Schilz for their support and valuable insights.
Camille has also kindly shared a poetry generator, so even if you’ve never written a poem before, there’s plenty of ideas to get you started for our deadline of August 31 2017. You can enter the poetry category on the Hysteria website.
Damhnait Monaghan’s short stories, flash fiction, and creative non-fiction are published in Hysteria 4 Anthology, A Box of Stars Beneath the Bed (2016 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology), Understorey Magazine, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Still Point Arts Quarterly and The Incubator Journal. She’s on Twitter @Downith.
Natasha Bland is a member of our lovely short story judging team this year. Originally from Devon, Natasha is now based in Kapiti, New Zealand. Her short stories are published in various anthologies and have been shortlisted in competitions, including the Magic Oxygen Literary Prize, Early Works Press Short Story Competition, and NZ Writers College Short Story Competition.
Marie Gethins is a member of the Flash Fiction judging team for the Hysteria Writing Competition 2017. She lives and works in Cork, Ireland and is a flash fiction and short story writer with many credits to her name who has won or been placed in The Short Story, Tethered by Letters flash, Flash500, Dromineer Literary Festival, The New Writer Microfiction, Prick of the Spindle. She has also had other work listed by some of the UK’s leading writing competitions, the Bristol Short Story Prize, Fish Short Story/Flash/Memoir, James Plunkett Award, Listowel Writers’ Week Originals, Inktears, RTE/Penguin, Molotav Cocktail, Lightship, Doris Gooderson, Over the Edge and WOW! Award . Marie is a Pushcart and Best of the Short Fictions nominee. You can meet Marie on Twitter @MarieGethins.
Sue Borgersen is one our fab poetry category judges for the Hysteria Writing Competition 2017. She writes and makes art on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Canada, surrounded by boisterous dogs and a vast collection of odd musical instruments.